Limited distribution: MeritServus and MeritKapital (445 GB)

Files and emails from Cyprus-based firms setting up shell companies and golden passports for clients like Chelsea F.C.'s former owner Roman Abramovich

Photo of Roman Abramovich by Amir Hosseini

We have added 325,000 files and 72,000 emails from MeritServus and MeritKapital to our limited distribution collection. Demetris Ioannides’ companies MeritServus and MeritKapital provide corporate registration, administration, asset management and holding company services along with golden passport services in Cyprus, in the European Union. MeritKapital is also registered with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

From their website:

MeritServus was officially incorporated as a division of Deloitte in 1988. Subsequent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision’s introduction of regulations relating to auditor independence, MeritServus became wholly independent through a management buyout in 2005.

According to news reports, MeritKapital has set up shell companies for the Russian/Portuguese/Israeli businessman Roman Abramovich, the former owner of Chelsea F.C., who was sanctioned by the UK.

From an article about the May 2022 sale of the Chelsea F.C.:

In 2008, a High Court case heard that Ioannides’s Cyprus-based service company MeritServus Ltd controlled a web of companies in the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus, “which hold various interests, personal and business, some very sizeable, of which Mr Abramovich is, or would appear to be, the ultimate owner”.

The new data DDoSecrets is listing reveals beneficial owners of the shell companies set up by these firms, as well as the transfer of shares, banking documents and other business products for Merit’s client list. Until the day Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Ioannides was a trustee of the Cyprus trust of Abramovich.

From the Times of London:

MeritServus and another company Finservus controlled Abramovich’s business interest and “personal assets [such as] planes, boats and houses”.

The financial relationship between Abramovich and Ioannides goes back more that 10 years. In 2020, MeritKapital was blacklisted by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

Due to the presence of personal data like scans of IDs, this dataset is in our limited distribution section. Please request access using our new ticket system if you are interested in researching these files.